Queer Chicago performance artist, director, producer and playwright Scott Bradley died Sept. 8 surrounded by family in Half Moon Bay, California after a brief battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. He was 60.
Bradley was born July 27, 1966, in Des Moines, Iowa and spent his childhood and teen years between there and Colorado. He graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of General Studies degree with a concentration in performing arts and culture studies.
Bradley spent time as an exchange student at the University of Hull School of Drama in the U.K. While in England, Bradley trained with the Bloo Lips, a radical drag theater company which shaped his future performances. Bradley moved to New York City right after graduation to pursue an acting career.
Throughout Bradley’s 20s and 30s he went between New York City, where he ran the Brooklyn-based BACA Downtown with his good friend Bonnie Metzgar, and Seattle, where he ran Open Circle Theater with another good friend Elizabeth Klob. He performed in nightclubs, cabarets and theaters in and out of drag, portraying many different characters such as Precious Little who “knew precious little and wore precious little.”
Soon after Bradley moved to Chicago in 2004, he got the role of Prior in Angles in America as a member of The Hypocrites theater company. Two years later, Bradley directed Caged Dames for Hell in a Handbag.
Bradley and his creative and later romantic partner Jonny Stax co-founded The Scooty & JoJo Show in 2007 where they created Chicago’s long-running “cult” musicals Alien Queen (2010-2012); Carpenters Halloween (2007-2010); Mollywood (2008); Tran: The Atari Musical (2008); the weekly Diva Brunch (2009-2010) at The Spot with Brian BonDurant; and the 70s-style variety hour programming where he played Scooty alongside Jonny Stax as JoJo.
In 2015, Bradley and Stax moved to West Branch, Iowa so Bradley could get his Master of Fine Arts at the University of Iowa’s Playwrights Workshop and pursue a lifelong dream of building an art farm in the rural Midwest. His master’s thesis was an original full-length play he produced at a professional theater.
After Bradley graduated in 2018, he became a member of the faculty for a number of years, teaching alongside his mentors and friends Lisa Schlesinger and Megan Gogerty. Bradley also taught at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa for a number of years. Additionally, Bradley was a Grinnell College Theater Department visiting lecturer.
Bradley, who called About Face Theatre his artistic home for nearly 20 years, produced his solo memoir show Packing in 2019 with direction by Chay Yew. About Face Theatre, under producing artistic director Megan Carney’s tutelage, previously produced his We 3 Lizas a musical he co-wrote with Alan Schmuckler that envisioned Liza Minnelli as the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. Bradley also starred in About Face Theatre’s production of The Homosexuals by Philip Dawkins.
Additionally, Bradley’s plays have been produced around the world, most recently at the Edinburg Fringe Festival. The last show Bradley was able to oversee from rehearsal to production was A Kingdom Jack’d, a parody he wrote during the first Trump administration of an alternate history retelling of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 1 play where the fool Jack Falstaff takes the throne. It was most recently produced at the York International Shakespeare Festival in York, England.
Bradley also performed at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre, New Works Project, adobe theater company, Next Stage Theater, HOME for Contemporary Theatre & Art, Metro Chicago, Walkabout Theatre Company, BigTop JoJo, Washington Shakespeare Company, Arena Stage, The Shakespeare Theatre, UMO Ensemble, AHA! Theatre and Bald Faced Lie.
A year before Bradley’s death he got a Teaching English as a Foreign Language and Teaching English as a Second Language (TEFL/TESOL) certificate from the TEFL organization in Edinburg, U.K.
At the time of Bradley’s death, he had a few projects in the works, including a film adaption of Neil Miller’s book Sex-Crime Panic alongside filmmaker Alex Thompson. The book chronicles a weekend in Sioux City, Iowa when the police did a sting operation at gay men’s hangouts and arrested them. This true story happened in the 1950s; these men were exposed in the newspapers, with many of them sent to mental institutions on sexual deviancy charges.
During the fight for marriage equality, Bradley and his then fiancée Stax, whom he met in 1999, staged a rally at a Washington, D.C. courthouse with seven other couples, where they tried to get a marriage license. When they got their rejection letter and refund check, they framed it and used it as their wedding guest book during, what Stax calls their “unlawful marriage ceremony” in 2004. They got officially married in 2015.
Bradley was an Iowa Arts Fellow, an About Face Theatre artistic associate, Iowa Playwrights Workshop alumnus and Dramatists Guild, AEA and SAG/AFTRA member. In 2011, Bradley was chosen for the BroadwayWorld Chicago Award for Best Theatrical Event. He received the IRAM Award for Outstanding Work on New Plays in 2017 from the University of Iowa. At the 2019 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Bradley was recognized for Excellence in Teaching.
One of the things Bradley was most proud of outside of his work life was his 18 years of sobriety. Stax said Bradley loved the AA program.
Bradley is survived by his mother Pat Smith; brother Chad Chitwood; sister Libby Mayor; niblings Leo, Ella, Jack, Ruthie, Luke, Zach, Lizzie, Julia, Tyler, Cameron and Ryan; godson Lewis and many adopted niblings through his chosen family.
Stax said, “He was Gracie to my George. I was Sonny to his Cher. Even when the marriage ended, we kept creating together. Entertaining deeply with important queer stories spectacularly told. We decided not to have kids because there are enough kids who need gay uncles and our creative ventures can be our offspring into which we invest all we have. We have a dozen blood and many more adopted niblings. In fact, I feel like we were uncles to Chicago’s queer performance scene. He will forever be Uncle Scooty to my Uncle JoJo.”
Metzgar said, “Scott dazzled on stage and in his words on the page. From his early days at the Pyramid Club in New York in the ‘90s to his shows with About Face in Chicago he had a gift for spreading joy even in the darkest times. I remember after his musical We Three Lizas he decided to dedicate himself to his writing and last year he had shows in England and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He brought so much beautiful, important art into the world. I will miss him deeply as an artist, but even more so as a friend“
Carney said, “Scott was a fearless artist who told the truth with joy and courage. Whether he was writing or transforming into an entirely new character, Scott had this gift for making audiences feel free and courageous. That’s how it felt to collaborate with him too. I always left a conversation with Scott thinking—just go for it. His vision for theatre and life was outrageous in the best way and his legacy will live on in every artist he inspired.”
Hell in a Handbag’s David Cerda said, “I met Scott in 2006 when he interviewed to direct a show I was working on. When we talked, I realized Scott got it and I knew immediately I wanted to work with him. We became fast friends and supported each other’s work over the past 20 years. The art he put out into the world was wonderful. He was always trying to improve himself academically and artistically and was an all-around funny, smart and great guy. Scott was a part of my chosen family and introduced me to so many people I have in my life. He had a lot more to do and now the world won’t see it. This pisses me off. I will miss being able to talk to him about anything and everything.”
Good friend Marisela Treviño Orta said, “While I knew Scott for only a little over a decade, I think it’s fair to say it’s not just the number of years that determines the impact someone has on your life. Scott was my friend and my peer. We talked deeply about our work and the challenges we were navigating as artists—learning from one another as we did. Scott was an ambitious dreamer. His work is audacious and vulnerable. Watching him strive towards artistic goals despite life throwing challenges at him was more than just instructive or inspirational. I now know it nurtured a part of my soul and I will keenly feel that absence.”
A celebration of life will take place in Chicago. Details TBA.
